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She snaps her gum and lazily looks around the room. She isn’t in any mood to entertain or be entertained. She passes around the room a carton of cigarettes and then looks disappointed when it comes back empty. She lets the empty carton fall to the floor, sliding from her fingertips to land soundlessly on the carpet below. It is an utterly repulsive act of indiference, and I fight the urge to leave the room. Gum girl is far too relaxed and rich to care very much about cigarettes or littering or pleasing anyone, and she returns to her methodical gum snapping- once every ten senconds, which must take up most of her concentration. I contemplate whether she is really a horrible person or not, and I realize the room is far too hot to make clear judgments. Indifferent gum girl stops chewing only long enough to concentrate on an intermittent task- sweeping away damp bangs that fall across her eyes with the back of a very white, thin hand. The motion is made with the greatest effort and a deliberate sigh of loud boredom. The snaps are getting to me. Across from her, draped across a red couch, lay a girl who clearly held the cohesive power pulling the small group of people together into the one rooom. In the oppresive, hot room, her white dress seemed made of mist, and I decided that she was the most refreshing thing I’d ever seen. Ronald, a huge hulking mass of a man, lurked in the corner, casting a shadow over everything bright sparkling forth from his fiance Ava who had by now, stood up from the couch, stretched forth like a cat who had gotten up from a nap, and kicked off her shoes. She strode to the middle of the room in a languid movement, which instantly centered everyone’s attention upon her wave-like entrance and her watery dress. It was a welcome diversion.